Democrats push for outside Katrina panel to investigate agency response
Believing that oversight of the agency response will be lacking, House Democrats are pushing for a 9/11 commission-style inquiry.
House Democrats are stepping up the pressure for an independent commission to investigate the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina through a legislative maneuver known as a discharge petition.
As the former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown testified before a special House committee chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., Democrats in the House leadership condemned the hearing as a Republican whitewash of what they maintain was a colossal failure of the Bush administration to coordinate government agencies in responding to the Katrina disaster.
Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Rules Committee, said that the Republicans in Congress are incapable of investigating the Republican-run federal agencies.
The federal response was "not only frightening … but embarrassing to all of us," Slaughter said. "This is not a Congress that investigates anything."
Joining Slaughter in the announcement of the discharge petition were Reps. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Democratic Caucus, and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.
The petition, with 218 signatures, would force a House floor vote on legislation (H.R. 3764) that would create a 9/11-style panel to examine how federal agencies dealt with the aftermath of the Gulf Coast disaster.
Members of the defunct 9/11 panel were divided earlier this month over the need for an independent commission modeled on their own. Some argued that the events surrounding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were not as complex as those leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that a congressional inquiry would be sufficient. Others said that an independent panel is necessary for an accurate rendering of agency actions leading up to and following the hurricane's landfall.
In a statement released Tuesday morning in concert with the discharge petition announcement, Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said that the panel -- the House Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina -- will be "tough and thorough."
"I do not believe we should outsource our congressional oversight responsibility," Davis said. "[A] commission would take months to set up and an eternity to finish its work. We will begin now while evidence and memories are fresh."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said last week that she would not assign anyone from her party to serve on Davis' commission. Nevertheless, two Democrats including Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana participated as noncommittee members in Tuesday's questioning of the former FEMA director.